


All kinds of everything

by RubyEliz



Series: All the lives we could have lived [6]
Category: Free!
Genre: Haru's massive crush on Rin is showing, Long-Distance Friendship, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Pining, Realisation of feelings, Set around S3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:40:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27085726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyEliz/pseuds/RubyEliz
Summary: Tokyo shouldn't remind Haru of Rin, and yet he sees him everywhere.
Relationships: Matsuoka Rin & Nanase Haruka, Matsuoka Rin/Nanase Haruka
Series: All the lives we could have lived [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1428367
Comments: 19
Kudos: 97





	All kinds of everything

Tokyo shouldn’t remind Haru of Rin.

They’ve never been here together. Rin has never been in Haru’s small apartment, has never joined him with his friends at the coffee shop, doesn’t frequent Haru’s campus and has certainly never been swimming in Haru’s new pool. Rin and Tokyo should occupy entirely separate parts of Haru’s brain.

And yet … he sees him everywhere.

It doesn’t make sense. Tokyo is nothing like the quiet beaches and hilly green of their shared youth. It’s sprawling and steamy and looming, the oft-cloudy sky cut up by tall buildings and flashing billboards. Its too much colour and noise and light and screams for his attention in six different ways every time he steps outside.

Sometimes he still needs to remind himself that he lives here now. That this is home.

In the first adrenalin filled weeks of his move it had been something of a battle to hold his nerve. It had taken work, real effort to carve the chaos into small, meaningful sections - his neighbourhood, Makoto’s apartment, coffee with Asahi and Ikuya, his new pool, new team, his university campus, learning new running routes that carry him along the sumida river.

He had practiced crossing the space between these pockets of ‘home’ until the metro routes were memorised. Until he could journey from one to the next without even needing to look up, weaving and bobbing through the faceless crowds like it’s second nature. Like he belongs.

But still….

He feels a gap. A notable absence.

Like Rin should _be here._

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be easier this time. They’d left on good terms, promises of shared dreams and future races. He’d made peace with the necessity of Rin’s departure to Australia and Rin himself had taken great pains to explain all the ways this would be different from last time ( _I’ll write this time. I promise, no matter what)_. Besides, Rin had said brightly, the next year would be so busy for both of them that Rin would be back before Haru even noticed he had gone.

And blindly Haru had trusted him. Had trusted the new flat, the new city, the new classes and new team to provide enough distraction that he wouldn’t have time to miss him, and that without the geography of their past around him - the swim club, the beaches, the sakura trees - he would be safe from anything that might cause him to remember just how big the space is that Rin leaves in his life. 

No, Tokyo in all it's newness and strangeness and noise and distraction shouldn’t remind him of Rin, and yet, here is a list of all the times Haru has found himself thinking about him over the past weeks:

  * In the supermarket buying mackerel, because he knows Rin would have something to say about his diet. And despite the obnoxious way he goes about it, and how goddam annoying Haru finds it, he also knows that he only does it out of genuine care that Haru succeeds in this strange, hard, wonderful path they have chosen together. And that makes him glow right there in the shop. He finds himself looking at the steak longer than can be considered normal (looking. He’s not so far gone that he buys it.) 
  * On the metro, because someone is wearing a shirt that looks vaguely similar to a shirt Rin also owns, but doesn't look half as good in it 
  * Walking through the university campus because he spots a boy with red hair. But not quite Rin’s red. It doesn’t have the same mix of tones which sets him off frowning unsure if he is remembering Rin quite right. An unsettling feeling. 
  * At the gym, because he just knows Rin wouldn’t be able to stop himself correcting his form. Would place his hands against Haru’s shoulder blades, his lower back or his elbow to gently nudge him into the right position. Because he knows sometimes he gets sloppy on purpose for that very reason. 
  * Every time he spots Tokyo tower on the horizon, because even though everyone knows it’s tacky and terrible Haru is sure it will still be top of Rin’s list when he does finally get round to visiting 
  * At coffee with Makoto and Asahi, because there’s a couple behind them sharing a piece of cake and Haru is sure Rin would find it romantic 
  * Walking back from class, because he spots a cat and can’t help but picture Rin getting all excited and dropping to his haunches to try and pet said cat, and his pouty disappointed face when it inevitably rejected his enthusiastic efforts at affection 
  * In the pool, always in the pool, because the person in the next lane isn’t Rin and no matter how much he enjoys training and likes his new team, that never ceases to be disappointing
  * In the bath (dangerous)
  * In bed (more dangerous) 
  * Most waking moments 
  * Most sleeping ones too if he’s honest



It’s immensely frustrating. If he had thought missing Rin was bad the first time, it has nothing on missing him now. Now he has the understanding to put names to his feelings, has grown up enough to understand just why his body seems to react in the way it does to any suggestion of Rin.

He may, or may not, have discovered in the white noise of the city that he has _just a bit_ of a crush on his sometime friend sometime rival. Which is not particularly helpful information to have unearthed now that said friend is over 8000 miles away in pursuit of their shared dream.

It adds a layer of awkwardness to their already slightly strained texts and emails and occasional calls. It’s new to them to have to communicate in this way - in words written in black and white characters rather than in actions and body language and those looks when he just knows Rin is about to challenge him to something utterly stupid that he will be utterly helpless to ignore.

It’s still almost always Rin who messages first, and Haru wonders just what Rin would think if he knew how long it takes Haru to write even the few paltry sentences he sends back. All the characters he taps out then deletes.

**Training is going ok**

_It would be better with you here_

**It’ll be cherry blossom season soon**

_And_ y _our birthday. Will you be here?_

**Don’t think I’ll let you win when we next race.**

_I miss you_

Gods how he misses him.

It starts to affect him in strange ways.

Unable to sleep one night, he stands in a deserted fluorescent-lit seven eleven sniffing bottle after bottle of shampoo trying to remember which brand Rin uses (something with cherry he could swear). None of them smell quite right so he gives up and buys five, ignoring the cashier girl’s stare as he pushes them into a plastic bag along with a couple of tins of mackerel and some heavily pre-packaged pineapple. He spends the next several weeks smelling like all manner of two sweet, too chemical flowers, but feeling no closer to Rin. He wants to just give up and ask him, but can’t work out how to drop into their casual text conversation _‘oh, and what exactly do you buy to smell the way you do?'_

One morning while he is out jogging Rin sends him a photo. He hears his phone ping with the message, and normally wouldn’t check but something makes him this time.

It’s Rin, grinning by the beach clearly also out on his morning run. His hair is a little sweaty, pushed back off his face and lit ruby by the still rising sun. He looks happy and at peace and so so beautiful.

**10k before the sun is up. Beat that!**

Before he can think about it too much, Haru taps open his own camera app and sends one back, unsmiling.

**Try harder Rin**

He has an extra spring in his step on the run home.

* * *

Some weeks later he spies a photo of Rin pop up on Makoto’s laptop one afternoon when they are studying together at Makoto’s apartment. Makoto patiently sits by while Haru scrolls through Rin’s social media profile - a previously unseen treasure trove of pictures of Rin and what’s he’s been up to -Makoto almost successfully hiding his amusement when Haru pushes his books aside to instead spend the next half hour setting up his own profile to ‘follow’ Rin’s.

Later, back at his apartment and alone Haru continues to scroll until he notices the photo that Rin sent him is sat there on Rin’s feed in all its sweaty-sexy glory with a caption in English that Haru cannot understand.

He feels unaccountably hurt by this.

He had thought that was just for him. Just for them. Had he been stupid to send one back in return? He closes the laptop with a snap, deletes both photos from his phone, shuts down his newly created social account and goes to brood in the bath.

When he emerges, almost as if summoned there’s a new text from Rin waiting on his phone. ****

**New 100m PB. Match this!**

Haru’s lips twitch into a smile before he can stop himself.

He reactives his profile

Later that week Haru notices that the cinema in his neighbourhood is playing the latest edition of a romance series Rin likes. It’s all overblown and ridiculous and Haru doesn’t even need to look at the poster in much detail to guess the plot - the lovers will be split by some nefarious force, they will pine and miss each other and try to move on only to realise they can’t bear to be apart and will fight to reunite in a soppy happily ever after. He will never understand why Rin likes them so much. Why they make him flush and cry.

He gets a bit pink in the cheeks himself thinking of how soft they make Rin and walks on, studiously ignoring any other posters he passes.

Two days later on the way home from training he caves and buys a ticket.

He’s the only person in the cinema alone. The rest are all either couples clearly on dates, or groups of young women. A few girls seated close to him whisper and giggle in his direction but he just ignores them and quietly watches the film. It’s just as terrible as he expects and at one point he almost doses off, but he sits through to the credits.

Afterwards he pulls out his phone in the cinema foyer and types out a short reply to Rin’s latest message. ****

**I saw Starcrossed Five in the cinema. It’s as bad as all the rest.**

Rin takes longer to reply than normal. Usually even at his slowest Haru will get a response within a day - more commonly its instantaneous as if he just sits around waiting by his phone for Haru’s text. This time, it takes two full days before his answering message chimes in. It’s shorter than normal, asking no questions and making no reference to the film. Haru reads back over their last set of messages and wonders if he missed something or did something wrong. He can’t understand the misstep.

 _How annoying,_ he thinks, as he checks his phone yet again for a new text from Rin that doesn’t come. Not for the first time he wonders why it has to be this way between them. Friendship with Makoto has always been easy. Friendship with Rin never has. But then, he supposes, it’s hard to be friends with someone when you’re also rivals and also happen to be rather a lot in love with them. _Very_ _annoying._

He tries to settle himself with the thought that they’ll speak in a few days. They’d agreed a time to FaceTime over a week ago and Rin hasn’t said anything to indicate it isn’t still going to happen. He’ll understand better when he can actually _see him_ , Haru tells himself. Rin’s expression and body language always give him away. Even over the screen he won’t be able to hide if something is wrong, he reasons.

* * *

Something is absolutely wrong.

As soon as Rin’s image springs to life on his laptop Haru can tell that something is off. He’s tense and unhappy, and when he speaks though his words are cheery and normal the delivery is too clipped. Unnatural.

They trade stilted small talk for longer than is comfortable - training regimes, lecture times, the weather for goodness sake - until Rin eventually, and clearly trying far too hard to sound casual so that his voices pitches a little, asks “So who did you go to the cinema with?”

“Nobody. I went alone.” Haru shrugs.

Rin looks a little stunned at his reply. Then he bursts out laughing and all the strange tension that had been there only moments before seems to melt away.

“HARU! That’s so like you to do something strange like that. And there was me thinking you were on a date!”

Haru finds himself frowning, not sure what’s so funny.

“Why would I have been on a date?”

Rin waves his hand around his face like it couldn’t possibly matter anymore.

“Oh you know, you always said you hate those films and anyway its not really something you just see alone. It’s something to watch with the person you like.”

Haru feels a strange flutter in his chest.

“But we went together to see number 4. Remember? You cried at the end.”

It had been back in Iwatobi, before Rin had to leave for Australia. Haru hadn’t minded what they would do for the afternoon so let Rin drag him on the train to Sano to the local cinema to watch his precious rom com. Haru hadn’t cared about the film at all, but he’d liked seeing Rin happy.

The Rin he can see through the screen doesn’t look very happy though. In fact for a second Haru thinks the screen has frozen, but no it’s Rin who has sharply stilled.

“Right.” His voice comes out strangely tangled. A bad connection maybe. “Obviously that’s different.”

“Obviously.” Haru echoes, stomach sinking but not sure why. It’s not like he’s ever thought it was anything more than what it had been. But then Rin had just said...

Theres an awkward silence after this, and as they stare at each other not for the first time on one of their calls Haru feels the frustration at the distance well up. If Rin was in the room he could tell what he was thinking. If his expression meant he was unhappy, or annoyed or maybe even just a bit bored.

It’s hard to recover the conversation after that. They try to go back to swimming or training. Safe, familiar ground, but it’s not long before Rin makes his excuses and ends the call.

Haru spends the rest of the evening strangely unsettled. Even a bath doesn’t help. But then later, just as he is readying for bed his phone pings with a text from Rin.

**It was good to speak to you tonight.**

Haru smiles to himself in the dark. He should know better by now than to worry about Rin going silent again.

**Same.**

He replies.

_I miss you._

He types out, but does not send.

* * *

It buzzes round in his head all week though, what Rin had said about dates. That _obviously_ it had been something different between them. He can’t quite square what it is that’s bothering him so much, so eventually he talks to Makoto.

“What would you think if I wanted to take someone on a date, but the person I wanted to take was a ‘him’ not a ‘her’.”

Makoto stills, but there’s no huge sense of shock of revelation. Instead, when he speaks he sounds calm,firm, and like he’s had more than this short time to think about his answer.

“I’d think as long as the person you want to date makes you happy, then I’m happy for you. Nothing would change our friendship Haru. Nothing.”

Haru nods, a strange weight off. If at least Makoto doesn’t think him asking about boys and dates is so bad, he can probably deal with anyone else.

Makoto chews his lip like there’s something else he wants to say.

“Don’t be mad, but can I ask - is the ‘him’ you want to take on a date Rin?”

Haru nods again stiffly, “You think it’s a bad idea?”

“No!” Makoto laughs lightly. “No I actually think it makes a lot of things make a lot of sense.”

Haru looks at his hands and all the peace and calm he had felt a mere moment before at Makoto’s gentle acceptance shreds as he thinks about what it would mean to really ask Rin. What it would mean if he said no. Even more so what it would mean if he said yes. It’s a thrumming sort of feeling - half excitement, half fear. He takes in a breath and feels like his lungs can’t quite get enough air.

“Do you think Rin would want to go on a date with me even though I’m a guy too?”

Makoto smiles softly “I think Rin will want to go on a date with you because it’s you Haru. You’ve always been special to him.”

“Thanks Makoto.”

Makoto looks thoughtful for a moment, then grins.

“I’m not supposed to tell anyone this, but Gou let slip that Rin is planning on flying over to visit in a couple of weeks. You know how he hates a fuss… but I could find out? Send you the details, if you want?”

Haru feels a bubble of pure happiness rise up in his chest. The intensity of it is almost alarming and if Makoto’s expression is anything to go by, he is giving all manner of things away.

But Rin, coming here, finally.

He nods. And he starts to plan.

* * *

The airport is crowded and noisy and Haru can’t stay still, bouncing from foot to foot, sitting then standing, checking and rechecking that Rin’s flight has in fact landed safe. He should be through any moment.

He absently watches the airport reunions that happen around him - families reunited, couples brought back together. He even spots a young man stood holding a heart shaped card and a pink balloon and wonders if he should have brought something for Rin, but shakes the thought off since its too late now anyway (though he files the idea away for another time, thinking it would be nice to get to watch the way it would make Rin blush.)

When Rin finally does arrive, Haru almost misses him.He is walking with purpose, cap low on his head and gaze too high - clearly searching for signage and not expecting to see a familiar face.

Haru feels a swell of impossible tenderness, mixed with nerves and excitement, and wishes he could spool out this moment of getting to watch Rin before he knows he’s being observed. But too fast Rin’s long legs are already carrying him across the arrivals hall and toward the metro entrance, and so Haru doesn’t have time to dwell on the rush of emotion, he has to hurry to catch up, to intercept.

“Rin!”

The first time he doesn’t hear him, so he has to shout out again a little louder. But this time Rin starts to turn, and Haru catches the dawning of recognition on his face - confusion bleeding into shock bleeding into something else entirely. 

“Ha—— Haru??”

For a single long moment they just gaze at each other, and then before Haru’s brain can catch up to his body he steps forward and throws his arms around Rin’s shoulders, pulling him close and burying his face in his neck. Rin feels solid and warm and he smells _just right_ and he’s here.

It takes a moment before Rin has the presence of mind to lift his arms to hold him back. And when Haru doesn’t pull away, Rin doesn’t push him. Instead they stand there wrapped together and it doesn’t even occur to Haru to worry that they are in full view of most of the arrivals hall because Rin is here and he is gripping him like he’s scared if he doesn’t he’ll get swept away.

When they finally do pull apart, Rin’s cap has been knocked a little lopsided, and he looks and sounds so sincerely touched that it does funny things to Haru’s insides. “You… came to pick me up?"

Haru feels his throat threatening to close and sounds horribly strained to his own ears when he just manages to force out, “You didn’t tell me.”

Rin blinks at him. “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

They both laugh a little at that, nervous. Unsure.

“Well surprise." Haru replies flatly, a little awkward now, before he tries to get some manner of control back by pulling on Rin's arm to direct him back towards the metro. "Come on. You can stay with me.” 

Rin frowns. “But Sousuke said...”

“Sousuke’s lost. You can stay with me.” He interrupts.

“Haru, what’s gotten into you?” Rin stays stubbornly still, eyes large and surprised and … hopeful?

Haru stills too, their bodies still linked where he is gripping Rin’s arm as the crowds continue to mill around them.

“I missed you.” He says simply, honestly, and feels his cheeks heat.

Rin too blushes an impressive, and yet still rather beautiful, pink.

“Oh.” And then. “I missed you too.”

* * *

The journey across Tokyo to Haru’s flat is a quiet one. Not entirely a comfortable silence as they keep sneaking glances at one another and stand a little too close in the metro car, but one charged with promise and anticipation.

When it comes time to change lines, Haru steers Rin with a gentle hand on his elbow and Rin looks back at him with raised brows, surprised but happy.

“You’re really settled here, arn’t you?” He says with something like admiration. Haru doesn’t answer but he thinks Rin can tell he is pleased.

When they finally emerge into the dusk of early evening at Haru’s station, Rin spins around slowly to take in their surroundings while Haru in turn takes the opportunity to take in Rin. He looks healthy and happy - skin ever so slightly sun warmed, shoulders broad and straining a little under his jacket, expression content.

He finally stops and turns back to Haru.

“So this is you?”

“Yeah this is home.” Haru nods, then reaches out and takes Rin’s hand, lacing their fingers together as he guides him to his apartment block. Rin makes a high pitched little squeak of surprise but doesn’t protest. He grips Haru’s hand right back.

The unspoken between them will still need to be made clear with words, Haru knows - that there are things he needs to make sure Rin understands, a big question he needs answered.

But for now, finally, Haru feels a deep contented calm wash over him.

His city is complete.

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the song lyrics ‘All kinds of everything remind me of you’. 
> 
> I’ve been having a big old writers block so this was a bit of a word-vomit experiment after listening to a cheesy old song to try and get writing again <3
> 
> To anyone that is kind enough to still be following Aere Perennius I promise this has not been abandoned! The final two chapters are mostly drafted, and I will have them finished and published as soon as I can!


End file.
